Systems and methods for backing up and restoring individual or multiple files are well known in the art. While these systems and methods are well known, they suffer from numerous drawbacks.
As background, backups may be created for individual files or for entire volumes, or disks of a computing system. These backups contain all blocks of data corresponding to the file at a given point in time and are stored either locally or remotely in a data repository.
One of ordinary skill will appreciate that due to cost and data storage limitations, it is not practical to create full backups of files or disks on a regular basis (e.g., hourly or daily). Therefore, systems and methods have been developed to utilize full backups in conjunction with incremental delta files, which include information indicative of blocks of data that have changed relative to the last backup. Unfortunately, these systems and methods are replete with drawbacks. For example, to restore a file to an arbitrary time reference, an iterative process must be utilized that is both time-consuming and inefficient. More specifically, starting with the most recent backup and a previous incremental delta file, an intermediate file must be created and stored in temporary space that includes all of the blocks of data present in the backup plus changed data included in the incremental delta file. If another incremental delta file exists between the intermediate file and the desired version of the file to be restored a second intermediate file must be created and temporarily stored. This process continues until all pertinent incremental delta files have been processed to restore the file to the arbitrary time reference.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide systems and methods that reduce and/or eliminate the aforementioned drawbacks associated with presently available systems and methods for backing up and restoring files.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent in light of the present specification, claims, and drawings.